PREFACE: The aim of this book is to assist, and induce, the student to read the General Theory. Too often nowadays one reads a good deal of the literature about Keynes but little in the General Theory itself. It is my experience that very many students find the General Theory a difficult book. It is the purpose of this volume to serve, so to speak, as a tutorial guide. The student is advised to read and reread the relevant sections in the General Theory in conjunction with the present volume. There is available, by now, a number of books which offer the student a "short cut" to Keynes. The present volume does not belong to this category. It is not a substitute for Keynes. The short cuts are not likely to help the student to read the difficult parts in the General Theory. By attempting to "make Keynes easy" they are indeed likely to leave the student, quite unintentionally no doubt, with wrong ideas about what Keynes really said. I have tried in this volume to face the difficult parts in the General Theory head on. And especially I have tried to under- score precisely what Keynes said on controversial issues. In considerable measure (but not always) the controversy vanishes once it becomes clear what Keynes did say. No one can reread Keynes without being impressed with the fact that he succeeded, to an astonishing degree, in anticipating his critics. But he was not always right, and where this is the case I have endeavored to point it out. On the other hand, I have set phrases, which taken by themselves alone are likely to be misinterpreted, against the larger back- ground of the book as a whole. A debater may look for points, but scholarship demands that we take a look at the whole. No doubt practiced readers will find, here and there, that I am quite wrong in what I say. It would be foolish to claim the final word on so difficult a subject, and I have no illusions on that score. But throughout this volume I have constantly tried to cite chapter and verse so that the reader who may question my interpretation of any particular point can readily refer back to Keynes himself. I wish to express my appreciation for the facilities for research made available by the Graduate School of Public Administration of Harvard University and for stimulating discussions with graduate students and colleagues in the Department of Economics. I am indebted to Dr. Richard Goodwin for helpful suggestions; to Professor Paul Samuelson and Professor Abba Lerner for comments on the chapter on interest-rate theory. None of them is to be held responsible, however, for what I have written. I am also grateful to Mrs. Berwyn Fragner and Mrs. Robert Lindsay for assistance in preparing the manuscript for the printer and to Mrs. Lind- say for making the index. I wish to express appreciation for permission to quote generously, which permissions have been granted by the authors and publishers and are duly noted in the footnote references. My thanks are especially due, in view of the exceptionally large number of quotations from The General Theory, to the Keynes trustees and Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. Alvin H. Hansen. (ÖNSÖZ)